Looker Connect Training

Help Center

Documentation

Community

Cloud Certifications

Technical Tips & Tricks

Previously internal product knowledge now available for you to explore!

  • 1,744 Topics
  • 406 Replies

1744 Topics

Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the schemas option used for in the "New LookML Projects" page?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 12, 2017 Since creating new projects generates LookML files, the schemas option declares which schemas to generate files from.If you have 2 schemas you want to generate files from, you'd enter them in comma separated format (i.e. schemaone, schematwo) in that field If you leave it blank, LookML files are generated using the default schema, which is listed as the database in the connection settings. This content is subject to limited support.                   

330
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do the group_ids, permissions, and models parameters set in an SSO embed URL determine the embed user's permissions/roles?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 1, 2018 There are three parameters in an embed URL that can be populated to set the features within Looker that a user has access to:Parameter Required? Description Data Type Example group_ids No The list of Looker groups the user should be a member of, if any. Use group IDs instead of group names. Array of integers [4, 3] permissions Yes The list of permissions the user should have. See the permissions section for the list of allowed permissions. Array of strings [   "access_data",   "see_looks"] models Yes The list of model names the user should have access to. Array of strings [   "model_one",   "model_two"] Together, the permissions and models parameters create a role for the embed user (this will show up as "Embedded Role" in the Admin - Users panel). If permissions/models are explicitly stated in the embed URL, and the group_ids parameter is also specified, then the Embedded Role will be ADDITIVE with any roles that a

3880
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does Looker allow 2FA other than Google Auth (Like Duo)?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 12, 2019 Looker only supports Google Auth at the moment.Note that you can use Duo with some SAML providers, so it is possible! You just need to be using SAML with Looker. This content is subject to limited support.                 

110
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I stop/pause all of my scheduled jobs on my instance? is this possible?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 20, 2019 We are currently not able to do this via the UI. This is a feature request you can vote for: Pause schedule plans. Workaround 1: Change startup flags and restartIf you host your own instance, you can do this using startup flags on an instance. For example, for--scheduler-threads=<i> Number of simultaneous scheduled tasks (default: 3) You can set scheduler-threads=0 to stop any and all future schedules from being triggered and sent out.Note: that this change requires an instance restart in order to take effect.Once you are all set with your changes and want to have the schedule jobs running again, you can set the `scheduler-threads` startup flag back to the default (3).Workaround 2: Incorrect SMTP settingsIf you can’t or don't want to restart, another possible workaround is to edit the SMTP settings in the Admin > Platform > SMTP panel. If you change them to something incorrect, then the schedules will fail to send.You can find few more options on t

3700
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why isn't my Custom Theme being applied? Why is only the custom font theme changing?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 3, 2019 Most likely you hitting a scenario where the dashboard already had Embed Settings edited and saved. As per our docs:If embed settings are applied to a dashboard, they override any custom theme specified in the embed URL. If you want to use a theme for a dashboard that uses embed settings, you can remove the dashboard’s embed settings so that you can use a custom theme.When is says "remove", this means you have to hit the "Reset to Defaults" option in the Embed Settings page.​​After you Reset the settings, you Custom Theme should be applied in fullIf not, there may be a typo in your URL! Color Collection is not being applied?The visualization color collection needs to be set to Default Visualization Colors in order for a Theme Color Collection to be applied.​​ This content is subject to limited support.                  

3940
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you embed (sso, private) any Looker page?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 8, 2018 No. Based on Docs, there are only 4 types of Looker pages that can be embeddedLooks Explores User Defined Dashboards LookML Dashboards   This content is subject to limited support.                    

300
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is my table calculation expression reporting an argument type must match error message?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 This can happen when creating an IF( ) statement in Table Calculations that have different datatype results. For example:if(row()=1,"row 1",if(row()=2,"row 2",${order_items.count})) Where order_items.count is an integer value, but the other IF conditions output strings like row 1 or row 2. To resolve this we need to ensure that all data type outputs of the IF statement match. This is very similar to how a CASE WHEN will work in SQL.if(row()=1,"row 1",if(row()=2,"row 2","else string value"))orif(row()=1,1,if(row()=2,2,${order_items.count}))   This content is subject to limited support.                  

2880
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does Looker have a Table Calc equivalent to R's pnorm() and qnorm() functions?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 According to the R documentation (from inputting >?pnorm in R Studio), pnorm can take up to 5 arguments. This takes a Z-score value q and outputs a probability or p-value.pnorm(q, mean = 0, sd = 1, lower.tail = TRUE, log.p = FALSE)The related function in Looker's Table Calculations is norm_dist() which is described as: norm_dist(value, mean, stdev, cumulative)Returns the position of value on the normal distribution with the given mean and stdev. If cumulative = yes, then returns the cumulative probability"Translating this to R language (with the exception of the log.p functionality, which could be achieved by taking the log of the resulting p-value in Looker) value = qmean = meanstdev = sdcumulative = lower.tail If cumulative is "yes" or lower.tail is "TRUE" then our p-value is P[X<=x].To give an example, we get the following in R:> pnorm(2, 0, 1)[1] 0.9772499Which is similarly achieved in Looker using:norm_dist(2,0,1, yes) which gives us 0.977249868 

1670
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why aren't my SSO embed URLs creating a new embed user when I access them?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 24, 2020 If you are getting a "You are not authenticated to view this page" 401 error, then the login has failed and the user will not be created. Try the URL in the Embed URI Validator. Fabio's troubleshooting guide can also be helpful.If the login is successful, this most likely means that existing credentials are being used instead of new credentials. Check to see whether the external_user_id in the embed URL matches the embed credentials of an existing user under Admin - Users.If the external_user_id does not match an existing user, check to see if force_logout_login is set to false in the embed URL. If so, when a user has an existing UI Looker session and accesses a new URL, their existing credentials are used instead of the embed credentials defined in the new URL, so no new user will be created.It is generally recommended to set force_logout_login to true to avoid these issues. Virtually all use cases for setting force_logout_login to false can be made cleaner b

450
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Schedule a System Activity report that sends when other scheduled reports failKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 7, 2020 Using System Activity you can tell if a scheduled report was successfully sent. Schedule this System Activity explore as an hourly report, by adding the Advanced Send this schedule if there are results and you'll be notified if another schedule failed. https://[HOSTNAME]/explore/system__activity/scheduled_plan?fields=scheduled_job.created_date,scheduled_job.status_detail,scheduled_job.status,dashboard.title,look.title,scheduled_plan_destination.address&f[scheduled_plan.run_once]=No&f[scheduled_job.created_date]=1+days&f[scheduled_job.status]=failure&sorts=scheduled_job.status_detail&limit=500&column_limit=50&query_timezone=America%2FLos_Angeles&vis=%7B%22hidden_fields%22%3A%5B%22scheduled_job.status%22%5D%7D&filter_config=%7B%22scheduled_plan.run_once%22%3A%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22is%22%2C%22values%22%3A%5B%7B%22constant%22%3A%22No%22%7D%5D%2C%22id%22%3A0%2C%22error%22%3Afalse%7D%5D%2C%22scheduled_job.created_date%22%3A%5B%7B%22

710
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Workaround for vis/menu overlap when hiding a tile title on dashboards-nextKnowledge Drop

Last tested: May 4, 2020 If you hide a tile title on a dashboards-next, the element overlay could impact the interactivity of the visualization. For example if you had something you wanted to click a the top right, the kebob can get in the way​​One workaround is to make the title title not hidden, and make the title empty. That would make the vis reserve space for the title without displaying anything. Like so ​This works on query tiles but not Look-linked tiles, since saved Looks require a title.​ This content is subject to limited support.                  

990
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Advanced LookML - Intro Aggregate AwarenessKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 24, 2019 This is a useful method if you have summary tables defined in your ETL process. Otherwise, take a look at our Aggregate Awareness documentation to see if our native option works for you!Aggregate awareness is a BI term that describes the ability to use aggregate (summary) tables in a database. These summary tables contain pre-calculated data, generally rolled up by week, month, quarter, and year along with key metrics. This is particularly useful in datasets where there is a high level of granularity, stored at a transaction level. Furthermore, by leveraging liquid variables, these tables can then be referenced dynamically from a single Looker Explore.Let’s look at a common example. Suppose you wanted to get a distinct count of users per year from your event table; consider the two queries below:Query A - Default Looker query:Query B - Leverage a summary table as a CTE:What we’re actually looking at is the query plan of each query via the EXPLAIN command. This

12090
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

HADOOP—Error: Error reading from hdfsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 13, 2018What does this mean when you see it in a database connection test? It's possible for blocks of the Hadoop File System to get corrupted - in this case you'll see a message like this. Removing the corrupted block from hdfs removes the error. This content is subject to limited support.                  

430
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I reuse my LookML code? (Reusing Code with Extends)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 21, 2019 For more information on Extends and how to reuse your LookML code, review the documentation here.But how does Extends work? What if there is the same parameter on my new file?At a high level, Looker performs a object-by-object comparison and the new file takes precedence if the same object exists on both files. The steps are:COPY: A copy is made of the defined LookML object that is being extendedMERGE: The copy is merged with the defined LookML object that is doing the extendingRESOLVE CONFLICTS: If a LookML object is defined in both places, the object doing the extending is usedFINISH: The new LookML object can be used within the model just like any other LookML object This content is subject to limited support.                  

1050
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Pairing IdP Attributes with Looker User AttributesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 3, 2019 You can pair IdP attributes to Looker user attributes in order to get user-specific settings into Looker (for example if you're using a parametrized connection or access grants). This can be helpful if you already have attributes set in IdP that you want to use in Looker, or would prefer to set permissions like this in IdP rather than Looker, so the IdP can act as the single source of role truth.ExampleFor example, you might have a SAML attribute set in your IdP for department which takes on the values finance, sales, or marketing. In Looker, you may require only the finance department to see the payroll values of the organization.In order to make oversight of this user attribute more seamless, you can map a Looker user attribute to the department SAML attribute. Here are the steps:Create a new user attribute in Looker. (If you have an existing user attribute in Looker that you want to map to the SAML attribute, then you can skip this step!) In this example, we

1140
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is my NDT showing a "No such field ' ' in source explore ' ' " error?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 14, 2018 This has been shown to happen to NDTs for 2 main reasons. One is a Typo in the view_name.field_name reference and the other reason is a missing fully scoped field reference.Typo in field nameError Message:A LookML model issue occurred.No such field "produtypo.category" in source explore "order_items"bucket1/ndttest.view.lkml:4 NDT LookML:view: ndttest {derived_table: {explore_source: order_items {column: category { field: produtypo.category }column: count { field: products.count }Where there is a typo at productypo and that should be productsMissing Full Scoped Field referenceError Message:A LookML model issue occurred.No such field "category" in source explore "order_items"bucket1/ndttest.view.lkml:4 NDT LookML:view: ndttest {derived_table: {explore_source: order_items {column: category { field: category }column: count { field: products.count }  Where field: category should be written fully scoped as field: products.category  This content is subject to limite

3750
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Generate Date Series/ Create a calendar view of future datesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 26, 2019Some dialects have a generate_series function that makes this trivial. We have a Community article that explains a workaround you can write in SQL for MySQL, Redshift, BigQuery and Snowflake.For example, Redshift does not implement generate_series(), so we will use the row_number window function over a bunch of cross joins to generate a numerical sequence, and then add the redshift date logic:SELECT '2015-01-01'::DATE + d AS dateFROM ( SELECTROW_NUMBER() OVER () -1 as dFROM(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p0,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p1,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p2,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p3,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p4,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p5,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p6,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p7,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p8,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p9,(SELECT 0 as n UNION SELECT 1) p10) This will give you row for every date from Jan 1, 2015 to Aug 9, 2020. Adding an additional (SELECT 0 as ...) will double

16510
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is an image (PNG / PDF) download request stuck on "Queued for Rendering" for a long time (20+mins)?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 4, 2019 Since we can only run two simultaneous rendering processes by default (see the --concurrent-render-jobs=<i> startup flag), two slow queries can back everything else up. So, image download jobs really can be queued for rendering.Looker will try to run the queries and cache the results before entering the renderer queue, but sometimes the cache will be invalidated by the time Looker starts rendering. Below is an explanation and image of the behaviour seen.~30mins to fully render on the EIn that example, the instance had an Explore where a newly run query could take explore page. When this instance had multiple queries run based on that underlying Explore, it caused a render backlog. Even the simplest PNG download request had to wait for that ~30min explore to finish rendering (or have it be manually stopped via Admin > Queries Panel)if you see a long-running Queued for Rendering page, review the Queries Admin Panel for long-running queries. This can help

2130
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Advanced LookML - Cohort and Retention AnalysisKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 24, 2019 What is a Cohort Analysis?Read this data tutorial here (5 minutes) and check out this introduction video to learn about the fundamentals about cohort analysis: What’s the point of Cohort Analysis?The goal of a cohort analysis is to analyse the performance of cohorts relative to each other and over time. Once we understand how different cohorts are performing, we can then take action.What exactly is a “cohort”?In a nutshell, a cohort is simply a subset of users grouped by common characteristics. In the context of BI and SaaS, a cohort usually refers to a subset of users specifically segmented by some key date (i.e. the first time they visit your website, the date they perform a specific action, the date they made their first purchase/registered, etc.). Based on this key date, we can then group users together by the week / month, or whatever timeframe is useful for the business.How do we do this?By grouping users together by some key date, we can then compare di

67570
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Dynamic Joins - How to use liquid to dynamically adjust sql_on conditionsKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 22, 2019 Define the different join conditions within liquid if/then control flow statements:explore: order_items {join: orders {relationship: many_to_onesql_on: {% if orders.id._in_query and orders.created_date._in_query %}${orders.id} = ${order_items.order_id} AND ${orders.created_raw} = ${order_items.returned_raw}{% elsif orders.id._in_query %}${orders.id} = ${order_items.order_id}{% elsif orders.created_date._in_query %}${orders.created_raw} = ${order_items.returned_raw}{% endif %};;}} In the above example, I am joining on A) the date and id fields if both the date and id field are included in the query, B) the id field if only the id field is included in the query, and C) the date field if only the date field is included in the query.Note: Make sure to confirm your if statements are in the order you would like them evaluated because the process will return the "then" response for the first true logic test.  This content is subject to limited support.               

9310
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I have models with the same name in different Projects on the same instance?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 9, 2020No, model names must be globally unique according to docs.When Looker generates the URL for an explore, it's of the form /explore/[model_name]/[explore_name]. So each model must have a unique name on the instance in order for the URL to be assigned correctly.While it is technically possible to create LookML model files with the same name in different projects, only one of those models can be configured at a time. If you do not follow the rule of keeping model file names globally unique, you may experience strange behavior where certain parts of Looker reference the configured model and other parts reference the unconfigured model. For example, the URL of the form /explore/[model_name]/[explore_name] will always direct you to the configured model, even if you navigated there from the LookML file for the unconfigured model.  This content is subject to limited support.                  

3580
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

"Circular reference detected"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 16, 2020 Make sure you're not referencing the LookML field instead of the tables field. This example you can see that the measures sql is referencing this measure itself within the sql which causes the loop;measure: memberships {description: ""type: sumsql: ${memberships} ;;} What you should have is the ${TABLE}.field_name referencing:measure: memberships {description: ""type: sumsql: ${TABLE}.ended_memberships ;;}  This content is subject to limited support.                  

25100
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
david.chiaramonte
Looker Staff
david.chiaramonteLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to Choose a Measure to Display DynamicallyKnowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jan 21, 2019 Let's say I have a dimension that I want to see multiple aggregations for one at a time!We can create a parameter with n number of allowed values depending on the number of measures you wish to display:From here, we can create a measure with liquid that listens to the parameter value declared above and then chooses the corresponding measure to display:You can then add the dimension and dynamic measure to an explore, save it to a dashboard, and then add a dashboard filter on that parameter:You should then see similar functionality to this:Congratulations! You've now made a dynamic measure that users can interact with! :) 

1871
albronca
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Git refresh webhookKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 2, 2020 WhatThis webhook forces Looker to rescan and rebuild the referenced project, and will force changes from the filesystem to the Looker UI.https://[hostname]/webhooks/projects/[project name]/refreshWhYSome users work with LookML files entirely outside of the IDE, or copy files from one Looker instance to another directly in the filesystem. Some use machine-generated models that they distribute to their Looker instance over a script. This puts local prod ahead of remote prod. Looker doesn't constantly scan the models directory for changes - if you make a change in a directory with Looker (by editing a file, or a doing a git operation for example), then Looker automatically rebuilds the models in that directory. But if you make a change in a directory that Looker is not aware of (for instance, a new project), then Looker will not notice it and won't rebuild. This content is subject to limited support.                  

1180
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error - "Project already Exists" for bare repoKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 23, 2020 Chat Tip: Bare repos are not recommended. Use Github or another remote repository if possible.One challenge with bare repos is that deleting the project or moving to a remote repo does not delete the bare repo folder. So, if you try to use a bare repo with the same name, you'll get an error saying the repo already exists. There is no way to delete the bare repo fully from the UI, but that is a good point to add to this product feedback.If you find yourself in that unfortunate situation, and you host your own instance, follow these steps. If your Looker deployment is hosted by Looker, please open a Looker support request for assistance. Log in to the server hosting your instance. Rename ~/models/project_name to something else, like ~/models/project_name_backup. Rename ~/bare_models/project_name.git to something else, like ~/bare_models/project_name_backup.git If there once existed a remote repo with the same name, delete the remote key for that repo, found at ~

5790
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago

Badges

  • Friendly Face
    sbrylowskihas earned the badge Friendly Face
  • Helpful
    carriehas earned the badge Helpful
  • Community Star
    carriehas earned the badge Community Star
  • Friendly Face
    carriehas earned the badge Friendly Face
  • Community Star
    Dawidhas earned the badge Community Star
Show all badges
Terms of Service